Saturday, July 2, 2011
Beatty the bad guy?
I am fascinated by Beatty the fire chief, whose character is full of contradictions. For instance, he spouts quotations with ease and yet claims he hasn't read the books in his secret library. He is too knowledgeable and self-aware to believe in what he is doing, yet he pursues his profession with (feigned?) enthusiasm. Did he know about the secret society of book memorizers? Maybe he chose to die because he realized he could never join them. Beatty seems more tragic than evil.
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I think he speaks with the fervor of a convert, but realizes the words ring hollow and he cracks when confronted. I wonder if he ever really believed in what he was doing, or (like many others) was sucked into the "norm" of the majority and it is Montag who snaps him back to thinking.
ReplyDeleteI ended up reading the Afterward part of the novel, where it explained another interaction with Beatty and Montag where Beatty's hatred for books stemmed from their inability to comfort him in his times of distress and need. That rage most likely is the reason for his burning of the books, but he also could burn out of sadness.
ReplyDeleteThese days there are often alternate ways to do a single thing. Just in the area of woodworking, options abound (and as often, confound): there are saws that cut on the push stroke and saws that cut on the back stroke; there are dedicated machines to cut mortises, and attachments to your drill or drill press to cut mortises, as well as the old tried-and-true chisel and mallet. The same goes for communication between people: there is email or voice mail or facebook or text messages or twitter or even (gasp) snail mail. But none of these guarantees excellence, for want of a better word, whether it is a straight cut or a tight-fitting joint in the former example or a message that will soothe, enlighten, or inform in the latter. We so frequently confuse the message with the medium, cursed by McLuhan's words from the past to never challenge the significance of the latest, best "thing". Beatty is full of sound bites from his (surrepticious?) readings, but without the strength or guidance or wisdom to link these individual threads into any kind of tapestry of understanding, "...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", the ultimate sophist.
ReplyDelete// Tony Toto, Science Dept (BCH '66)
I think Beatty is a totally unsympathetic character of the most dangerous sort...a sociopath, sponsored by a totalitarian state, whose been given the license to enforce its unwritten rule of "ignorance is bliss" and cheerfully brutalizes anyone who disagrees with it. At the same time, he rejects and ridicules the very things to which he can attribute his own enlightenment, choosing instead to become an instrument for their destruction.
ReplyDeleteI think that Betty was starting to see both sides and couldn't handle the confusion, so he read some books, and stuck it in the corner of his mind so he would forget it. He was just hopelessly confused and couldn't deal so he got Montag to kill him.
ReplyDeleteI think that in a way Beatty was a leader. He was taught that books are bad and in a way to everyone who believed books are bad he is a hero. He leads the fireman into each house and if he believed that books are good he would have made a very big impact on the world beacuase of his leadership skills.
ReplyDeleteArrupe Student
I think Beatty isn't bad, i believe he is just severely confused due to society as a whole belittling the use of books. At heart he knows that he is right in having a secret library and not giving up on the use of literature, but from his job and what he has been doing his whole life(burning), his brain tells him it's wrong to have books. Overall, Captain Beatty was a good guy,he was just very confused
ReplyDeleteSean Craig
Class of 2013